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@MJ DeMarco haha! You're the best man, thank you for the kind words. You + this forum + the great group of guys I met on here when I was 18 (can't believe it's been 9 years) definitely helped me make about 10,000 less mistakes than I otherwise would have on this path. So I am eternally grateful to you.
Speaking of your books, UNSCRIPTEDwas delivered yesterday and I can't wait to read it in Cabo this week

At a very high level, before the road splits into 5 different directions, can you provide a few pointers that could help someone like me at least pick a direction towards picking a product/niche? Like you said, the research and evaluation are ultimately up to me and I don't expect anyone to piggyback me towards a specific industry/niche. I would just like hear about your thought process that helped you zero in your specific industry/niche.

Click to expand...

I'd normally point you to go read all the threads I have already recommended, or to read the free eBooks I posted about in here... but I'll give you a couple quick tips my friend (because I get PMs like this all the time too)!

When picking your Niche for an ecommerce store:

Think about your hobbies when picking a product (and try to be between $100 - $500 per order retail price point)

Use Google "Keyword Planner" to find out if your primary product search keyword gets at least 10,000 searches per month

Or if the combination of your top two keywords gets 10,000+ per month

Once you find a keyword that is a hobby and meets that criteria... go type it in google and check what the top three results are (organic results)

If the 1st result looks like crap (old website, no customer reviews in place, no social media accounts)... then you're onto something.

If the 1st result looks good but the 2nd and 3rd look like crap... you still might be onto something.

If all 3 of the top results look like amazing websites with lots of traffic, customers, reviews.... then your niche may be too competitive... so start over with another hobby product

Make sure your product isn't super heavy

You don't want to get burned with high shipping costs that you can't pass down to customers

If you do have an item that is heavy, check to see if your potential competitors are offering free shipping or if they are charging customers shipping (just do a pretend checkout on their store, but don't actually order)

Search for USA suppliers (if you're in the USA) of your product by typing in "[Your Niche Product] Distributors" or "[Your Niche Product] Manufacturers" (manufacturers sometimes drop ship or can point you towards a distributor they use)

You want your suppliers in the same country you are drop-shipping product to, otherwise your lead times to ship to customers are WAY too long and you won't have happy customers

Call the distributors and open accounts (let them know you are an expert in your field and you are launching a new website soon). Suppliers want your business. They want to make money too. Convince them that you can help them make more money (i.e. sell lots of shit for them)

I'd normally point you to go read all the threads I have already recommended, or to read the free eBooks I posted about in here... but I'll give you a couple quick tips my friend (because I get PMs like this all the time too)!

When picking your Niche for an ecommerce store:

Think about your hobbies when picking a product (and try to be between $100 - $500 per order retail price point)

Use Google "Keyword Planner" to find out if your primary product search keyword gets at least 10,000 searches per month

Or if the combination of your top two keywords gets 10,000+ per month

Once you find a keyword that is a hobby and meets that criteria... go type it in google and check what the top three results are (organic results)

If the 1st result looks like crap (old website, no customer reviews in place, no social media accounts)... then you're onto something.

If the 1st result looks good but the 2nd and 3rd look like crap... you still might be onto something.

If all 3 of the top results look like amazing websites with lots of traffic, customers, reviews.... then your niche may be too competitive... so start over with another hobby product

Make sure your product isn't super heavy

You don't want to get burned with high shipping costs that you can't pass down to customers

If you do have an item that is heavy, check to see if your potential competitors are offering free shipping or if they are charging customers shipping (just do a pretend checkout on their store, but don't actually order)

Search for USA suppliers (if you're in the USA) of your product by typing in "[Your Niche Product] Distributors" or "[Your Niche Product] Manufacturers" (manufacturers sometimes drop ship or can point you towards a distributor they use)

You want your suppliers in the same country you are drop-shipping product to, otherwise your lead times to ship to customers are WAY too long and you won't have happy customers

Call the distributors and open accounts (let them know you are an expert in your field and you are launching a new website soon). Suppliers want your business. They want to make money too. Convince them that you can help them make more money (i.e. sell lots of shit for them)

Click to expand...

Nothing but respect to you. This thread is inspirational.

I've reread it 3 times this week. I've started edging towards an ecommerce site myself and im put off by the lack of control with dropshipping. But drawn in by the reduced start up costs and being able to offer a wider product range from the off.

Can I ask... do your suppliers let you personalise packaging, add inserts etc. Or is it strictly on their terms?

When you submit an order to a distributor you usually give them a packing slip for them to give to the warehouse/fulfilment team. Most suppliers/distributors should be able to drop in your store's packing slip at minimum, which will have your logo, web address, and any custom notes you typed on your packing slip. They may also be able to drop in, say a company sticker and a company business card with each order... but not all will do this.

Two of my primary suppliers drop in my store's custom packing slip, and would put other items in if I asked them as well (but I usually don't). I asked them if they could do this up front (if they had said no, it wasn't a deal breaker for me... some distributors are too big to logistically handle all of your requests... that is until you are too big for them to lose.)

Biggest hurdle with dropshipping is quality control (wrong product getting shipped, then you have to deal with returns/exchanges) and speed (they don't move as fast as you might, so it creates unnecessary customer service inquiries).

You can avoid these things by working with excellent suppliers who are organized. The best suppliers will have an internal website of their own where you can put in orders yourself, match SKUs, and track shipments. That said, my best supplier relationship has us submit all orders via email (as does my 3rd largest supplier).

When you submit an order to a distributor you usually give them a packing slip for them to give to the warehouse/fulfilment team. Most suppliers/distributors should be able to drop in your store's packing slip at minimum, which will have your logo, web address, and any custom notes you typed on your packing slip. They may also be able to drop in, say a company sticker and a company business card with each order... but not all will do this.

Two of my primary suppliers drop in my store's custom packing slip, and would put other items in if I asked them as well (but I usually don't). I asked them if they could do this up front (if they had said no, it wasn't a deal breaker for me... some distributors are too big to logistically handle all of your requests... that is until you are too big for them to lose.)

Biggest hurdle with dropshipping is quality control (wrong product getting shipped, then you have to deal with returns/exchanges) and speed (they don't move as fast as you might, so it creates unnecessary customer service inquiries).

You can avoid these things by working with excellent suppliers who are organized. The best suppliers will have an internal website of their own where you can put in orders yourself, match SKUs, and track shipments. That said, my best supplier relationship has us submit all orders via email (as does my 3rd largest supplier).

Click to expand...

Thankyou. It's really helpful information and puts my mind at ease with a few things. I'm Uk based so the number of distributors may block access to certain markets. I wouldn't want to dropship outside of the UK.

Are some of your products only available via one supplier? Or do you always have the safeguard of several suppliers. I've looked at a few products that only have one UK/european distributor. So there is additional risk.

Hey @G_Alexander, thanks so much for sharing your story, tactics, and advice here, it has been truly inspiring and motivating for many of us (me!). I am in the works of finding and launching a service like this for a niche of my own and was wondering if you could help me out a bit with how you managed the financial side of the business while ramping up. Did you forego any salary (even if minimal) while you were initiating the business? If not and you did pay yourself, would you shed some light on maybe a rule of thumb or any advice you can give on how much to pay yourself depending on what level the business is at (by revenue I assume).

Many thanks in advance for your insights and once again thanks for sharing your story and wish you even more success to come!

I am 25 years-old and I am now starting my own business in the wine industry. The goal is to create a new brand (which I am doing) and sell it abroad. To be honest, I have no clue how I am going to pull this off, but I will have to find a way.

This is the bit that stands out to me: 'I built my ecommerce site late at night during the last few months of my job. I would get home at 11pm or 12am and then work until 2am or 3am on my site (loading product, back-end, learning basic HTML and CSS, SEO). I constructed the site using only the free eCommercefuel guide and the masterful posts here on the forum from'

So many people I know need to read this! I hear too many excuses like 'I don't have time to start a business' or 'I don't know how'. Bullshit! Lazyness!

Thanks Fox! Really appreciate it, I was looking to get into eCommerce myself since I'm looking to tap out on my job but wanted to make sure I had all the tools under my belt first. I'm in that place where I'm looking across the chasm knowing I want to take the leap but have no idea how to jump. Getting started is the hardest part.

I am catching up on all the years I missed out by not being a part of this forum and saw this Post and I just had to say, WOW what a great motivational post @G_Alexander! I really enjoyed seeing this, seeing the courage it took to leave a steady well paying job, and the focus on being unscripted!

To add to your comment on just getting one sale, recently looking at data at a company I was at we determined (over millions of individual sales events and average daily users of over a million so the data is statistically sound) that once a client we supported got off the ground and did only 5 sales, they had a greater than 87% chance of success. That is HUGE to know! HUGE! That means that if you can get something going and get to the point of that single sale, regardless of size, and then follow through to 5 sales, you have a really good chance of being a success.

Sadly so many people I know go through the motions of starting a business and never really followed through to event he first sale. After spending time and effort why would you stop that? And of course 5 sales doesn't mean you are making money, or guarantees success, but the probability was good.

I just wanted to share that data because it is very validating for what we are trying to do here.

I'd normally point you to go read all the threads I have already recommended, or to read the free eBooks I posted about in here... but I'll give you a couple quick tips my friend (because I get PMs like this all the time too)!

When picking your Niche for an ecommerce store:

Think about your hobbies when picking a product (and try to be between $100 - $500 per order retail price point)

Use Google "Keyword Planner" to find out if your primary product search keyword gets at least 10,000 searches per month

Or if the combination of your top two keywords gets 10,000+ per month

Once you find a keyword that is a hobby and meets that criteria... go type it in google and check what the top three results are (organic results)

If the 1st result looks like crap (old website, no customer reviews in place, no social media accounts)... then you're onto something.

If the 1st result looks good but the 2nd and 3rd look like crap... you still might be onto something.

If all 3 of the top results look like amazing websites with lots of traffic, customers, reviews.... then your niche may be too competitive... so start over with another hobby product

I'd normally point you to go read all the threads I have already recommended, or to read the free eBooks I posted about in here... but I'll give you a couple quick tips my friend (because I get PMs like this all the time too)!

When picking your Niche for an ecommerce store:

Think about your hobbies when picking a product (and try to be between $100 - $500 per order retail price point)

Use Google "Keyword Planner" to find out if your primary product search keyword gets at least 10,000 searches per month

Or if the combination of your top two keywords gets 10,000+ per month

Once you find a keyword that is a hobby and meets that criteria... go type it in google and check what the top three results are (organic results)

If the 1st result looks like crap (old website, no customer reviews in place, no social media accounts)... then you're onto something.

If the 1st result looks good but the 2nd and 3rd look like crap... you still might be onto something.

If all 3 of the top results look like amazing websites with lots of traffic, customers, reviews.... then your niche may be too competitive... so start over with another hobby product

Make sure your product isn't super heavy

You don't want to get burned with high shipping costs that you can't pass down to customers

If you do have an item that is heavy, check to see if your potential competitors are offering free shipping or if they are charging customers shipping (just do a pretend checkout on their store, but don't actually order)

Search for USA suppliers (if you're in the USA) of your product by typing in "[Your Niche Product] Distributors" or "[Your Niche Product] Manufacturers" (manufacturers sometimes drop ship or can point you towards a distributor they use)

You want your suppliers in the same country you are drop-shipping product to, otherwise your lead times to ship to customers are WAY too long and you won't have happy customers

Call the distributors and open accounts (let them know you are an expert in your field and you are launching a new website soon). Suppliers want your business. They want to make money too. Convince them that you can help them make more money (i.e. sell lots of shit for them)

Click to expand...

Man, @G_Alexander, thank you so much for the insight. I really appreciate the feedback and good luck to your current/future ventures. Cheers.

I absolutely enjoyed reading this thread. Your beliefs, perseverance and energy are contagious.
What I love most is how you adore this forum and the friendships you have created and cherished.
Good luck with your next milestone!

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